Her Alibi

By Mary L Schmidt

Visions of her Cherokee grandmother, Cordie, flashed through Ma

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Schmidt Productions
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798218052553

Mary L Schmidt

Mary L. Schmidt is a multi-hyphenate and writes under her given name and a pen name, S. Jackson, along with her husband Michael, pen name A Raymond. She grew up in a small Kansas (USA) town and has lived in more than one state since then. At this time, Mary and her husband split their time between homes in Kansas and Colorado as they love the mountains and off road four-wheeling. Traveling is one of their most favorite things to do and Mary always has a book to read on her Kindle. Books are one of her favorite things. When she was younger, it seemed like every time she turned around, a new library card was needed due to the current one being stamped complete. Diving into a good book made any day perfect and you would be surprised at the number of books she read over and over. Mary has written 48 books thus far, and they range from art book, recipe book, children's books, several memoirs, and romance books. As a child, Mary drew paper dolls, and clothes for them, using watercolor as her medium when painting scenes, especially flowers. She continued with art in high school exploring a wide variety of mediums such as jewelry making, ceramics, leather works, drawing, painting and more! Her creative loves to be an amateur shutterbug and she has an online art gallery. In college, she went into the sciences, and received a bachelor's degree in the Science of Nursing. Throughout her nursing career, Michael assisted Mary in her work with The American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Cub and Boy Scouts, and sponsored children alongside his wife on music trips. Mary's nursing career was highly successful, and she hung up her nursing hat in December 2012. Mary and Michael love to read, fish, play poker, go Jeeping, and travel, especially to visit their grandson, Austin, and granddaughter, Emma.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Visions of her Cherokee grandmother, Cordie, flashed through Mary’s mind as her mother, Marguerite, informed her that her stepfather shot himself and was in the hospital. Oh no!

No! This can’t be! Not after the joking around at my home last night. NO!!!! Did she use me last night? She’d never use her scapegoat child. No, she couldn’t! Even Marguerite wouldn’t sink that low! Or would she? Marguerite had always been abusive and vile to most people, and especially to her children and husbands, but would she shoot Harold?

Yet, here I was, and I had to tell the police that, yes, my mother was at my home all evening and into the night. How despicable that my mother connived her way into using me as her alibi.

CHAPTER ONE

1960S

Chills raked Mary and she shuddered. Was she more shocked that her mother shot her stepfather with murderous intent, or that she left Mary as her alibi?

Let us back up. I should give you some background before we get to the shooting. I want you to understand the sociopathic people I lived with and the rage they couldn’t control. Marguerite’s rage was uncontrolled, quick, aggressive, and always held vengeance.

I want to fill in background so that you understand sociopathic people and the rage they can present to another person or persons. My mother was a sociopath. Her rages were uncontrolled, and she acted fast, aggressively, and with vengeance. I wanted to believe that my mother was a good mother, but always knew something was off. Marguerite, always seemed to think that she was the best mother, perfect even, but not all mothers are made the same, which I found out from an incredibly early age.

I remember the Christmas when I was about two years oId. We had a cedar Christmas tree with lights and tinsel. Somewhere, I found several small glass Christmas lights and held them in my hands. No one noticed me, so I took my pretty treasures and sat behind the heating stove in our small house on North Grand Avenue in Lyons, Kansas. For a reason only a two-year-old would understand, I put one of the light bulbs in my mouth and bit down. The glass broke, but I didn’t get hurt. I thought, Oh, that was a cool sound, so I broke the other one in my mouth too!

My mother, older brother, and sister were in the same room, but it was my mother who found me behind the heating stove, blood pouring from my mouth. She flew into a ballistic rage! I was in trouble. She spanked my butt, put a coat on me, and yelled at me all the way to the hospital. She was quiet while they pumped my stomach, but she was good at hiding her true self from people with authority. She wouldn’t risk a doctor thinking she was anything but a perfect mother. When the doctors were sure there was no glass left inside me, and with only a small cut on my tongue that didn’t require stitches, they sent me home. I will never forget her rage, and that is probably why I remember the incident so vividly.

I always wondered if my mother still thought she was a great mother after that happened. I was just a baby, so why was she letting me play with glass Christmas lights? There were two other people in the house at the time: My sister Debi, who was only three and needed supervision herself, and my brother Joe, who was ten and busy folding newspapers for his delivery route, not worried about his baby sister. That left my mother, who clearly wasn’t watching me. What kind of mother would beat a two-year-old while they had glass in their mouth?

Another Christmas memory I have is of my older brother, Joe. He was lying atop a piece of plywood on the kitchen table. My mother drew around him, and then cut the wood out, and painted it into a Santa Claus. Santa had glitter, sequins and was a festive gentleman who welcomed you at the front door. She even put a spotlight on him! I remember running my fingers over Santa, amazed that there was such a beautiful Santa at our house. Maybe things were going to change! Maybe life would get better and there would be no more yelling or whipping. Later, when we moved to a bigger house, Santa was left behind, as were my dreams for a brighter, better life with my mother.

I was a little over three years old when President Kennedy was assassinated. I had no idea what was going on,